MAM
MTV’s Youth Marketing Forum treads on trend territory
MUMBAI: Those looking for the next big trend at Thursday’s Youth Marketing Forum need have looked no further than MTV Networks president Bill Roedy’s comment.
“The next generation in India is going to change the world,” was the astute observation of the architect of MTV’s internationally successful localisation model. Speakers ranging from trend spotting icon Irma Zandl to ex Reebok marketing guru Muktesh Pant to creative ad genius Peter Arnell had converged at the President Hotel, Mumbai, to focus on, identify and unravel that elusive concept that drives most programming, advertising and marketing worldwide – trendspotting.
In its sixth edition this year, the forum attracted a fair share of the ad, marketing and creative fraternity in the country, all eager to imbibe the experiences, observations and insights from trackers of trends like Arnell, Zandl and Pant to trendsetters themselves – filmmakers Nagesh Kukunoor and Farhan Akhtar to fashion designer Wendell Rodricks and British Asian singer Rishi Rich.
Zandl, credited with the tag of having unofficially founded the trend spotting industry, dwelt on the methodologies her research firm employs for spotting, tracking and understanding trends in the US, as well as the difference between what’s a ‘trend’ and what’s merely ‘trendy’ – a passing fad.
Arnell, the force that drives the creative energies for brands like DKNY, Banana Republic, Chrysler and Ray Ban, regaled attendees with his witty, often wry observations and experiences with working brands like Samsung and DKNY. Arnell and Pant, who together created the trendsetting campaign for Reebok two years ago, delineated the way in which the print and video campaigns were created and the media employed to create a 360 degree consumer experience.
Pant, who has now initiated Project Y, a ‘revolutionary new brand that offers integrated facilities to offer yoga, ayurved and meditation’, also spoke on how he intends to convert the age old concept into a trend in the coming year.While Wendell Rodricks spoke about his shift from western design to being influenced by indigenous art, Rishi Rich spoke about the forces that have shaped British Asian music over the decades.
One of the driving forces behind taking Bhangra and Asian sounds to a mainstream audience in the UK, Rich spoke of the trend of the Asian community sticking together in pockets in the UK, which gave rise to a distinctive style of music, influenced by Hindi music, which has ultimately received recognition by well known labels in the industry.
It was Roedy however, who rightly pointed out that trendsetting is essentially inspired by risk taking and that to set a trend, one essentially has to fight the inertia to play it safe.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
